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Proposed landfill draws ire

The two firms behind a proposed landfill in Maury County remain silent on the issue, but local citizens are voicing their opposition against the idea.

Colorado-based RLF Duck River LLC and RLF Green Duck LLC are seeking a special exception use to establish a Class I Sanitary Landfill. The land would need to be rezoned to M-3 zoning, or a special industrial district. The property is currently zoned M-2, or heavy industrial district.

The property is located on Monsanto Road, northwest of Columbia’s city limits in Maury County, according to a letter submitted to the Maury County Board of Zoning Appeals from the two companies. The BZA would have to approve the request, a vote slated to take place Wednesday.

The proposed area would be within Monsanto’s former phosphate mining and refining complex. The property also abuts the Duck River.

The landfill’s total area would be about 845 acres. The area containing garbage will have about a 285-acre footprint with about 560 acres reserved for a buffer zone, according to the letter.

The Colorado

companies

Columbia-based engineer Jim Webb spoke on RLF Duck River and RLF Green Duck LLC’s behalf. The two companies are Webb’s clients, and he created the proposed rezoning maps.

“The best thing is to let whatever we turned into the BZA to speak for us, and we don’t want to play it out in the media particularly,” Webb said.

He declined further comment and referred all questions to the document.

The letter was submitted on Aug. 12 by Aaron Patsch who was listed as an authorized representative of RLF Duck River LLC and RLF Green Duck LLC. Patsch is a partner in Resource Land Holdings LLC, a Denver-based firm. Webb said that Resource Land Holdings is the company that “governs” Duck River and Green Duck.

Phone messages seeking comment from Patsch were not returned.

RLF Duck River LLC owns more than 4,500 acres in the area where the landfill would be built, which it purchased in 2009 for $10.8 million, according to the Maury County Property Assessor’s Office. RLF Green River LLC, which shares a mailing address with RLF Duck River, owns about 100 acres in that area.

Class I landfill

A Class I sanitary landfill may be used for disposal of domestic wastes, commercial wastes, institutional wastes, municipal wastes, bulky wastes, landscaping and land clearing wastes, industrial wastes, construction demolition wastes, farming wastes, discarded automotive tires and dead animals, according to the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation website.

Items described on the website as “other wastes” — including medical or infectious materials, dead animals, sludges, pesticide wastes or asbestos — must be cleared by TDEC before they can be disposed of at the facility, according to the website.

Citizen Concerns

Walter Partee, an Oak Park Drive resident, has lived in his Columbia home near Monsanto Road for about 40 years. Partee said he could not believe that a landfill could go near his home.

“Who in their right mind would want to be smelling a dump around their back yard?” Partee said. “Somebody who made that decision must not live anywhere close to where they want to put it.”

Declining home values and potential odors are concerns, he said.

Shirley Caulfield, who also lives on Oak Park Drive, said her whole neighborhood is against the proposed landfill. Caulfield echoed Partee’s concerns, but she also worries about traffic and potential environmental issues.

Her children fish in the Duck River, and she is unsure whether safety measures will prevent runoff from entering the water.

“We don’t know what it’s going to bring in — the odor or diseases,” Caulfield said. “Nobody has told us anything. They didn’t think enough of us to tell us anything.”

Caulfield said she heard about the issue from someone who came to her house requesting she sign a petition against the landfill.

A group called Concerned Citizens of Maury County created a website, www.maurycountydump.com, opposing the landfill. The website features names of people who signed a petition against the proposal.

Waste Disposal

The only Class I landfill in the Columbia region is Cedar Ridge Landfill in Lewisburg. Other Class I landfills in Middle Tennessee include Middle Point in Murfreesboro and Bi-County Solid Waste in Clarksville, TDEC spokesperson Shannon Ashford said in an email.

Both Columbia and Maury County send municipal waste to a landfill in Camden, Tenn., Ashford added in the email. Waste Management handles its contracts with the West Camden Sanitary Landfill.

Maury County Solid Waste Director Mike Sweeney said the county has contracted with Waste Management for about 10 years. He said it would be up to the Maury County Commission whether to change or alter that contract.

The county pays $25.18 per ton of garbage Waste Management accepts. The amount varies from year-to-year, and Sweeney said TDEC keeps the records on how much the county delivers to Waste Management.

The information was not immediately available on Friday.

Maury County Mayor Jim Bailey said there is no link between the county government and those behind the landfill.

“This landfill is a group of people that apparently made an investment thinking they can make money on it, and they have not offered Maury County anything,” Bailey said.

Additional Concerns

James Woodall, who lives on Parson’s Bend Road near the proposed landfill site, acknowledged that business is needed in Maury County — but not by this kind of company.

“I don’t believe we need a dump site for the Southeast,” Woodall said. “I am very opposed to it.”

Woodall’s property overlooks the Duck River, and he is concerned about polluting an area he actively uses for fishing and other recreational purposes. He said he is not convinced that any amount of safety measures will keep the landfill’s water runoff from getting into the river.

He also questioned why there was an effort to beautify the river with Columbia’s Riverwalk project — a scenic tourist attraction — that would be ruined with a landfill a few miles away from it.

Woodall also is concerned about his property value.

“If it didn’t hurt your property value, the people that’s got the money behind this would volunteer to put it in their backyard,” he said.

The Maury County Board of Zoning Appeals will hear the rezoning request at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday on the second floor of the Maury County Courthouse in Columbia. The meeting moved from the Tom Primm County Commission Chambers to accommodate more people.

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